August 20, 2007

Misfire: AP's Bogus Ammo Shortage Story

An Associated Press report published late Friday afternoon stated that ammunition shortages in some law enforcement agencies around the nation were to be blamed on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Troops training for and fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are firing more than 1 billion bullets a year, contributing to ammunition shortages hitting police departments nationwide and preventing some officers from training with the weapons they carry on patrol.

An Associated Press review of dozens of police and sheriff's departments found that many are struggling with delays of as long as a year for both handgun and rifle ammunition.

The damning narrative was grasped quickly by war critics who uttered banalities such as this:

Here's another little way the Bush doctrine is endangering our safety at home. Our local police are running out of ammo...

The good news is, U.S. forces in the Middle East are not going to run out; the troops get most of their ammunition from a dedicated plant. The bad news is, the strain is a burden on police departments, which could undermine public safety.

Bloggers were hardly alone is running with the narrative, which was carried by the Boston Globe, the Seattle Times, and other news agencies.

The Associated Press article cited police officers and sheriffs, and seems to present a bulletproof case.

Reality, however, shows that the assumptions made and biases held by the Associated Press reporters may have led the story to having been built on an entirely fault premise.

To understand the ammunition shortage being experienced by some police agencies today, we shouldn't look at September 11, 2001, but instead, begin with February 28, 1997.

It was on that day in North Hollywood, California that Larry Phillips, Jr. and Emil Matasareanu, two-heavily armed and armored bank robbers, engaged in a 44-minute shootout with an out-gunned Los Angeles Police Department. The two suspects fired more than 1,300 rounds of ammunition, and each was shot multiple times with police handguns. The 9mm police pistol bullets bounced off their homemade body armor. Phillips eventually died after being shot 11 times; Matasareanu died after being hit 29 times.

In the aftermath of the shootout, the LAPD, followed by police departments large and small nationwide, began to feel that rank-and-file patrol officers should be armed with semi-automatic or fully-automatic assault rifles or submachine guns in addition to their traditional sidearms, anticipating an up-tick of heavily armed and armored subjects. The trend has failed to materialize more than a decade later.

As with most trends in law enforcement, the trend towards the militarization of police patrol officers to a level once reserved for SWAT/ERT teams was slow, though one that gathered momentum rapidly after September 11, 2001.

Today, it is this increased and on-going militarization of police forces and the associated training requirements that have caused the ammunition shortages experienced by some police departments, and the lack of ammunition is not related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in any meaningful way.

ATK's Ammunition Systems Group is the largest ammunition manufacturing body in the world. ATK runs the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant under contract, where it has the capacity to manufacture 1.5 billion rounds of ammunition a year, or put another way, a half billion rounds per year more than is being used by our military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is also a major supplier of law enforcement ammunition under Federal Premium, Speer Gold Dot, Lawman, and CCI Blazer brands. The law enforcement ammunition is made in plants in Idaho and Minnesota that are completely separate for their military operations at Lake City. These production lines do not, as the AP falsely states, use the same equipment used to manufacture military ammunition.

Those who stayed with the entire Associated Press article might note that ATK spokesman Bryce Hallowell did not buy the AP's conclusion that the war in Iraq was having a direct effect on police ammunition supplies.

He stated further:

"We had looked at this and didn't know if it was an anomaly or a long-term trend," Hallowell said. "We started running plants 24/7. Now we think it is long-term, so we're going to build more production capability."

I contacted Brian Grace of ATK Corporate Communications for further information, and he also doubted the Associated Press claim that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were responsible for a police ammunition shortage.

Since 9/11 we've seen a huge jump in demand from law enforcement. In the last fiscal year alone we saw demand from law enforcement jump 40%. By running our civil plants 24/7, hiring hundreds of new employees and streamlining our manufacturing processes we were able to increase our deliveries to law enforcement by 30% in that same period. In addition, we've just announced we'll be investing another $5 million in new production lines at our civil ammunition facilities.

I pressed Mr. Grace to clarify, asking:

Based upon this 40% increase in demand by law enforcement, is it more fair to categorize the difficulty of some departments in obtaining ammunition as a fact of increased police demand outstripping current manufacturing capabilities, and not as the result of the military needing more ammunition and drawing down civilian supply?
Is their any shortage of lead, copper, or brass, or it is just a matter of not enough manufacturing equipment?

He responded:

Manufacturing capacity is the main issue. As you might imagine, for a precision manufacturing business that faced many years of steady demand, it can be quite a challenge to suddenly meet double-digit growth in demand. But we're very proud of the successes we've had with increasing our output while maintaining the quality and reliability of our products.

And we're committed to doing everything in our power to accelerate the growth in output, which is what precipitated the recently announced investment in additional equipment.

Let me make that crystal clear.

According to two spokesmen for the world's largest ammunition manufacturer, which runs the military's ammunition manufacturing plant and separately, is a major supplier of law enforcement ammunition, it is a massive and unexpected increase in law enforcement ammunition demand that is causing delays in law enforcement ammunition delays, not the war.

Once again, a media organization with target fixation seems to have widely missed the mark.

Update: Another Manufacturer Weighs In
Michael Shovel, National Sales Manager for COR-BON/Glaser, writes into explain that the price increases for ammunition are at least partially because of the demand from China for copper and lead for their building boom [and for toy paint, and baby bibs, and pajamas, but I digress--ed]:

The reason that PD's and people are having trouble getting ammo and also the price increases is the war effort and also the fact that China is buying up lots of the copper and lead for their building boom.
Our LE market has grown this year the same as it has the past 5 years. No big increase but no drop off either.
The only issue with our ability to deliver ammunition in a timely manner is getting brass cases and primers.
We do only some specialized ammo for the military and it's done in our custom shop instead on the production floor.

Interesting.

Mr. Shovel states that the war effort does play some role in the ammunition shortage, but does not say exactly what it is, and is apparently not speaking for his company when he makes that claim.

He states that their only issue in delivering ammunition has been getting brass cases and primers, and further, that the specialized military ammunition they produce is not part of their normal civilian/law enforcement manufacturing operations.

Dr. Ignatius Piazza, Director of the Frontsite Firearms Training Institute was also contacted about the shortage claimed by the Associated Press, as Frontsight's training courses typically require from hundreds to over a thousand rounds of ammunition per student per course.

Dr. Piazza noted, "From time to time ammo becomes in short supply but we always find it at various sources." He also stated that the shortages have been blamed on the ammunition companies "selling all they can sell" to the government, but once again, we don't seem to have any direct evidence of this charge revealed, at least not yet.

Could it be that the "conventional wisdom" is wrong?

Once again, I'm forced to wonder why the Associated Press reporters who composed this article chose to interview police officers about ammunition, instead of the companies that manufacture it and would have far more direct knowledge of the cause of any shortages.

Update: Manufacturer Remington Weighs In

Michael Haugen, Manager of the Military Products Division for Remington Arms Company Inc., states:

I would say that if they [law enforcement] are not training it is not due to the availability of ammunition.

Remington has one plant that makes all of their ammunition (military, law enforcement, general civilian), and Mr. Haugen stated emphatically that military sales are "definitely not" in any way detracting from the development and manufacture of civilian and law enforcement ammunition, and that Remington has additional manufacturing capacity, depending on the product required.

We now how three major manufacturers stating that their law enforcement ammunition sales are not being impacted by military ammunition sales, which seems to be directly at odds with the claims made by these Associated Press reporters.

I've approached Associated Press Media Relations Director Paul Colford and suggest that either a correction or retraction seems to be warranted for this story.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at August 20, 2007 11:12 PM

Comments

Aww, come on, CY, you don't expect the leftymedia to let a few inconvenient facts get in the way of a good anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-military story, do ya?

Traditionally the patrol car long arm was the short-barrelled shotgun. But departments are trending away from that, in favor of M4-style assault rifles.

In addition, SWAT-type units are more and more prevalent, as the federal government provides an insane amount of money for standing up and arming these teams, even in departments that have no need for them.

Police are rapidly becoming (and in some cities already are) the standing army our Founding Fathers were afraid of.

Varies by department. 9mm and .40 S&W are the most popular calibers in the LE market, however, there are some departments that use .45 ACP.

And last I heard, the typical long arm for patrol cars was a shotgun. Only the SWAT types carry the M16 lookalikes that shoot 5.56mm NATO.

Again, varies by department. After the Hollywood bank robbery, the cops around here seem to have moved the shotguns to the trunk and have M4s in the passenger compartment- and I'm taking about regular patrol cops, not SWAT. Those guys have MP5s and the like.

But American troops in combat carry M16 and related weapons, which shoot only the 5.56mm.

Not exactly. 5.56 NATO is the standard issue, but a lot of other calibers are used, as well. 308 cal/7.62 NATO is used in many (generally full-auto) support weapons, and it's also one of the other very popular cartridges for both the LE and civilian markets.

So how the hell can combat expenditure of 5.56mm be causing shortages in other calibers?

Well, the thing is, I have yet to find a gunshop that didn't have *some* 5.56 or 7.62 to buy... usually premium-grade hunting or competition ammo. What they don't have for sale are the 1000-round bulk cases of FMJ that people like to use for training or recreation.

I'm conflicted on the subject, though.I don't want the police to have fully automatic weapons (indiscriminate firing) and be heavy militarized (conspiracy theories).But I want them to be able to respond to a terrorist attack if AQ decides to release small hit squads in cities.

Do the police need automatic weapons to respond to a terrorist attack. Or would the semi-automatic weapons that the rest of us have to use do the job?

The militarization of the police is hardly a conspiracy theory. It is such a problem that sometimes I'm more worried about the threat they pose then some Allah-worshipping pyjama-clad monkey-bar expert.

The military load on the 9mm and .223 is usually in API, incendiary and ball. While LEO can use ball they will usually tend toward a hollow point type round that is forbidden to military applications by one of the Geneva Conventions. The hollow tip round also add the benefit of reduced of rounds passing through one target and hitting another.

No joke there. I noticed that the 'upswing' of the military/police also goes within the timeframe (1994) of the Government asking a selection of active US Military whether or not they were willing to suppress the citizenry of the US on the orders of Washington. The overwhelming response was negative, and those in charge realized that the active military would NOT be willing to take part in the suppression of the People of the United States.

By increasing the funds available to local law enforcement, and allowing them to "upgrade" their firepower and vehicles from surplus stocks from the US Militaery, the stage has been set for a real life "police state" circa Orwells "1984" or even Terry Gilliams "Brazil"

I wonder if the "uptick" in demand might have something to do with the various attempts by the "ban guns" crowd to shift to ammunition? Things like the OSHA stunt and statements by some of the Sara Brady types as well as increased visibility of atrocities like the DC ban may be making more 'private citizens' inclined to stockpile ammo.

That's impressive reporting, CY. You not only provide greater depth of analysis than their article, you also point out exactly where they go wrong, in asking police departments rather than manufacturers for comment. Their reporters were clearly in over their head. I also have to wonder who served this story to them on a platter.

Regarding use of 9mm and .45 hurting .40 cal, Yes it does. Ammunition lines are limited. each line gets switched back and forth between several calibers, just like a reloader at home does. Therefore high demand for 9mm means less .40 will be produced. try getting rare cartridges. some of those are near impossible to find and also high priced due to the time required to change over a line being factored into cost. The hours taken in reset are spread accross a few thousand rounds, vs a million rounds. Some lines are dedicated to one round only, but when demand for that round increases, another line is switched to that caliber.
Regarding cops carrying stuff other then shotguns, after 1997, I had cops borrowing weapons from me to supplement their dept issue. The prospect scared a lot of cops bad! Departments were slow to react due to budget constraints, and a lot of cops are low paid. (I got out of law enforcement because I could make more then double what a highway patrol officer was getting working in industry.) I had bucks, I like to shoot, so I spent my dough on some nice black guns. I used to go to the range with my deputy buddies, and they all knew what I had in my closet. Less then a week after the North Hollywood shoot out, one close friend asked to borrow my M-16. Within two weeks, every semi auto I had was on loan. I even loaned out my .44 mag and .357 to cops whose dept issue were old .38s.
As time went on, departments caught up, the officers budgeted for a good long gun, and the scare died down a little, and I got my stuff back.
After 9-11 The M-16 was back on patrol for about six months. during that time I added an M1A to my collection, and it got loaned out too.

Just wondering out loud with this, and offering no data at all to support it...

But I can't help but wonder if the increase in gasoline costs hasn't crept into the PD's pinched ammo budgets. I would imagine that a major cost of operating a PD is just keeping the cars running. Increase the cost of fuel, and a PD might find itself trimming elsewhere to keep paying the gas bill. Ergo: They might not keep so much training ammo around.

The fact that the price of copper has quadrupled and the cost of lead has doubled over the last couple of years definitely has had a large effect on the matter. The war also has an effect. All the surplus ammo that showed up on the civilian market due to the end of the cold war has finally dried up as well. The worth of the dollar has decreased, so importing ammo is more expensive now. Cost of fuel increases freight costs which are not insignificant when dealing with something as heavy as ammo. Add in more demand by PD agencies for ammo, and well its not hard to understand why the price of 5.56 ball has more than doubled over the past year. It's pretty ugly right now for the recreational shooter, if you are buying ammo off the shelf for an outing. A day at the range a year ago might of cost $50. Now its more like $150.

An associate professor at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication, Scott R. Maier, conducted research into the accuracy of newsprint, and found that about 50% of 1,220 news stories contained errors. And only 23 of these (about 2%) ever printed a correction.

An associate professor at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication, Scott R. Maier, conducted research into the accuracy of newsprint, and found that about 50% of 1,220 news stories contained errors. And only 23 of these (about 2%) ever printed a correction.

Under the Clinton Administration, orders were made by the White House that all military Ammunition would be 'environmentally sound.' In other words "Green" as the research showed that throwing lead downrange might have some impact on the environment. The interesting thing is the Military changed the core of the 5.56mm round to a Tungsen/Tin composite.

See the Article:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_19_16/ai_62349852

Whats REALLY fascinating is that the primary source of tungsten ore is the People's Republic of China, which "has an estimated 40% of the world's tungsten reserves." http://www.americanpolicy.org/more/greenamunition.htm

How many rounds of rifle and machine gun ammunition does the United States military fire at the enemy on average each day in Iraq? A hundred rounds? A few hundred rounds? Whoopdee do. The United States military has for decades fired hundreds of times (thousands of times?) more rounds in training each day than the United States military in Iraq fires at the enemy each day on average in Iraq. Also, as far as ammunition for pistols, how many damn rounds of ammunition for pistols have been fired at the enemy in the last five years in Iraq? Ten rounds? Sorry, Associated (with terrorists) Press, but there aren't many service members in Iraq engaging the enemy with pistols. Sorry, AP but the United States military is not engaging even hundreds of enemy targets with rifles each day in Iraq. Evidently, the dingbat from the Associated (with terrorists) Press "thinks" that the United States military is engaging hundreds of thousands of enemy troops in sustained combat each day in Iraq. ROTFLMAO! This Associated (with terrorists) Press fantasy is an absolute joke written by some America hating, military hating dimwit.

good catch on the AP story, but good reporting would also find a third source, not allowing the manufacturer to spin to their needs. also, good reporting would give some clarification as to why there's been a 40% jump in police demand. were they under armed before 9/11. is it a paranoid over reaction? has crime risen that much? a good story leave one with answers, not questions.

I believe that it's driven the prices much higher on the import stuff, along with the current exchange rate. Some of my older military rifles are getting more than a little expensive to fire and most of it is nothing more than the old Soviet ammo supply beginning to dry up. Wolf, I believe is a perfect example of the Russians finding a way to profit from the cold war. We can buy SKS semi-autos for $189.00 and then they sell us the surplus ammo for a fortune!

The original article isn't perfect, but it's no where near as incorrect as is being assumed.

1. Both ATK (who has the current contract to operate the US's sole miliary ammo plant, Lake City, and is the parent of Federal, Speer, and CCI, among others) and General Dynamics (owner of Winchester Ammo/Olin Chemical) are running their military lines at full speed, and are still unable to meet demand for rifle ammo. Practice ammo is being purchased from Israel (IMI) and South Korea, though it isn't used for combat due to political sensitivities.

2. The US is not the only country involved, and the US military is not the only military invovled. Just as the US military is consuming all available domestic military production, the same is true of several of the other countries involved in both theaters. Many of those countries normally supply the US civilian market with ammo, and that ammo hasn't been available for several years. And recently, the US has started to equip some Iraqi units with M16s/M4s instead of the AKs that are their standard issue. This consumes even more 5.56 ammo.

3. Many billions of rounds of post-Cold War foreign surplus ammunition was imported during the 90s and early 2000s, as a result of the global draw-down in forces following the implosion of the USSR. The last of that ammo started drying up around 2002-2003, further removing a large portion of the ammo that had been feeding the civilian market for over a decade.

4. It's absolutely true that 5.56 weapons have been adopted in droves for front-line police patrol units, especially post-9/11 when federal funding was made available. Certainly this has vastly increased the demand for 5.56, especially for training (unlike the military, the police expend very little ammo on duty).

5. Let's not forget about the vast increase in civilian demand, which took off around the time the original Assault Weapons Ban was passed in 1994. The ban brought military-pattern rifles to the attention of a lot of shooters, who suddenly rushed to buy one "while they still could" and found out how much fun they were. Interest in them exploded, and millions have been sold since then. Foreign ammo, both surplus and new-production, helped to keep up with this growing demand, but both are virtually unavailable today.

6. The UN Small Arms Non-Prolifieration Treaty has resulted in many nations refusing to sell ammo, new or surplus, on the civilian market.

7. Costs. Not only have raw materials prices gone up, but availability is down, resulting in supply delays. Energy costs are up, which, like most products, hits at every point along the production and distribution path. And more recently, the drop in the value of the dollar makes foreign imports much more expensive.

The bottom line is that there are many reasons for the shortage of ammo (and there IS absolutely a shortage; many of the big distributers have no 5.56 or 7.62 to sell for weeks at a time), but the War On Terror is directly or indirectly responsible for many of those reasons.

[quote]What effect does demand from domestic suppliers have on the price of foreign ammo (eg. Sellier & Bellot, Wolf)?[/quote]

S&B has contracts with Winchester/Olin, and it sells to many of the countries that are involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also sells to other countries who have also begun increasing their ammo stocks due to the increased instability in Europe and the Middle East.

Wolf is a US company that imports ammo from the Russian ammo plants at Tula and Ulyanovsk as well as from Serbia (Prvi Partisan). Russia has been selling billions of rounds of ammo around the world, including large orders to Venezuela and to Iraq. Remember that both the military and the police in Iraq primarily use Romanian AKs supplied by the US, after confiscating and destroying tens of thousands of existing AKs from various source countries.

Prvi Partisan has a number of military contracts, and they, too, are unable to supply ammo to the US civilian market in the quantities that they anticipated only a couple of years ago.

While ammo isn't quite the global commodity that oil is, you still have the problem where increased demand in one sector affects the supply in others, especially given that there is so little surge capacity in modern manufacturing. And in any country, the military always gets its order filled first, with the police and civilian markets getting the leftovers.

Yet another breakdown in the drive by media. The likes of the Boston Globe, Seattle Post Intelligencer, MSNBC, and ABC News among others can't even perform basic fact checking.

Unlike the AP and their newspaper and broadcast clients you folks at CY looked into this matter, contacting suppliers to find out the real story. The suppliers all stated that Military demand was having no direct impact on civilian ammunition supplies.

Your source says there has been a recent spike in demand, "...capacity is the main issue. As you might imagine, for a precision manufacturing business that faced many years of steady demand, it can be quite a challenge to suddenly meet double-digit growth in demand."

A steady business, sudden increase in demand, why? I suspect this may have something to do with federal, state, and local procurement timing. Any one whose ever seen the feds in action knows that August is traditionally the month they spend like crazy to exhaust their budgets prior to the September 30, year-end. I haven't confirmed this is true in this case, but it is likely a contributing factor.

Military ammo production capacity has been a persistent problem for several years now. Defense Industry News has covered this issue extensively going back as far as the summer of 2005.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/pass-the-ammunition-army-taking-action-on-smallcal-shortages-0859/ I learned this through a simple google search of the term "ammunition shortage." Had the AP done de minimus fact checking they would have easily discovered this. In this instance, AP's agenda driven journalism led to a multi-level malfunction, using selective anecdotes from inapproopriate and unknowledgable sources, failing to corroborate their thesis with other knowledgable sources (the ammo makers), failure to conduct basic research on the specific question, that alters the entire context of the story, and failure to dig deeper to see if other factors like federal procurement policies may have played a roll. Obviously the AP has abandoned all pretense of objectivity. CY is calling on the AP to issue a correction or retraction, this is an appropriate remedy in this case. The number of defective stories and pictures being produced by the AP is very distressing. Current management needs to address these quality control problems immediately. Failing to do so will ultimately lead to a catastrophic disaster

AzLib,
No worry about liability. I trained alongside those officers, and everyone of them had shot and was familiar with the weapons I owned. Most of them were ex military or National Guard, and were very familiar with the M-16. Mine incidentally was a semiauto only without the full auto seer, and a block to prevent it being installed. They all knew what I had, and on range day brought ammo so they could shoot. Every one of us qualified with at least ten diffrent weapons every time we went.

good catch on the AP story, but good reporting would also find a third source, not allowing the manufacturer to spin to their needs. also, good reporting would give some clarification as to why there's been a 40% jump in police demand. were they under armed before 9/11. is it a paranoid over reaction? has crime risen that much? a good story leave one with answers, not questions.

"Good reporting" also uses capital letters. It's not hard, there's two buttons--one on either side of your keyboard--labeled "Shift." Many of them even helpfully have up-arrows!

And why do I suspect that your desired "third source" would be one that would spin it back to Bush and the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil Wepubwicans and the war in Iraq?

I had the honor of taking supper with an Army retention NCO who was just promoted to E-7. We discussed the current levels of training the military is doing. This NCO works with Infantry and ADA units and gave me a lot of insite into what our folks are doing now. The infantry here are going to the range once a month, so roughly 50 rounds per person. Support people go twice yearly. One thing that was also brought up was the demise of the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant which sprawls accross south east Kansas. With the closing of SFAAP http://www.sfaap.net/sunflowermission.htm the army lost a major powder manufacturing source. Granted the facility was old and outdated, but they should have modernized rather then destroy it.

The real story here seems to be just what is fueling this ridiculous demand for ammo by our police.

Regarding the attributed statement that: "Since 9/11 we've seen a huge jump in demand from law enforcement. In the last fiscal year alone we saw demand from law enforcement jump 40%." Just what were the actual figures this is in regards to? Just how many rounds are we talking about that the police supposedly want?

Does anyone off hand know the total numbers of police officers in the US of A? What ratio of rounds desired to police officers is being discussed?

Since few cops ever fire their weapons in the line of duty in their entire career, this so called demand would have to relate to practice sessions, and there is a limit to the usefulness of that once you are familiar with your weapons.

As the conventional military is finally learning, keeping and building the peace is a different kettle of fish than combat. Cops are not military and their job is to keep the peace. That means building networks and contacts within the community - getting off your duff and walking around where appropriate - something that peace officers have always known, police officers have lost sight of, and with which SWAT teams have no conception.

If in fact a large part of the problem is just basic availability of copper, brass, and other materials used by center fired ammo then there is a very strong case being made for peace officers to go back to the trusty shotgun. Besides being a very good weapon in a fight - better than a M16 in house to house situations, it will tend to knock the bejesus out anyone even if they are wearing armor - shoot them in the head or legs and see what happens. The average cop's desire for an automatic assault weapon was a knee jerk reaction by people not very well schooled in the use of appropriate weaponry. Get hold of a 1911 or something similar, have the shotgun as backup. If that doesn't do it get under cover and wait for SWAT or hang it up and go home. Most times that isn't going to happen - my dad disarmed so many drunks and crazies without pulling his pistol that I couldn't keep score if I tried. He was a peace officer in the true sense of the word who had no interest in killing or even harming anyone - which isn't to say he couldn't.

Regarding the type of ammo being used by the military, Tom pointed out that the amount of pistol ammo fired in Iraq is about nil; he is correct. I have no idea how many rounds are fired on average over the course of a day in Iraq; however, I know when you get into action ammo tends to melt away. In addition, it is the automatic weapons which burn thru ammo, not so much the shoulder fired weapons. The SAWs are 5.56, the M60s are 7.62, then of course there are the .50 cal, and on the heavier vehicles there are 25 mm - not to mention the systems on the aircraft. In a fight a M60 can burn through more ammo than the rest of the unit's shoulder fired weapons combined.

Has the basic claim of the AP story even been verified? "Troops training for and fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are firing more than 1 billion bullets a year..." Even at a troop level of 160,000, which is high, that comes out to over 6,000 rounds per trooper. Granted automatic weapons on vehicles and aircraft can really inflate things but Tom is right, this seems really inflated, especially since our troops' fire discipline is pretty damn good. I certainly never fired anything remotely close to this. This figure looks more like the total ammo used by the military for everything world wide...

This is a good article and some of the comments have been very insightful - others have been a good laugh, jeremy.

Any LEO, be he 'police' or 'peace' officer, who does NOT regularly practice with his sidearm, needs to get out of the patrol car, go in the office, remove his badge and weapon, and sit down at a desk and type. This also applies to she LEO's, because they have no business on the street if they are not TOTALLY QUALIFIED and PROFICIENT with that piece.
And proficiency does NOT come from once or twice a year shooting for qualification at the range. Proficiency comes from AT LEAST 2-3 times a month, at the range, developing muscle memory, so that if it ever happens that you DO need to draw and fire, it is automatic, your hand and arm know EXACTLY what they are doing, your eye automatically lines up with the sights, you establish perfect sight alignment with a VALID target, breathing is good, and you SQUEEZE, not PULL the trigger to discharge - all INSTINCTIVELY, so you still have the time to tell the perpetrator "HALT! POLICE! OR I WILL SHOOT!"

C-C-G;

When I bought my Mossberg 12 gauge, that was the EXACT reason for bringing it home; that lovely "snick-click-clack" sound that says, "Hey JACKASS, the next sound you hear will be your LAST! Get OUT!"
I damn well know when I went through the FLETC academy in Georgia, way back in '77, hearing that sound in the training chamber sure as Hell stopped ME cold!

When I hired on my Department practiced with handloaded ammunition, the work was done by trustees in our jail. Shortly after that someone important decided that this practice was too dangerous although no one had ever been injured.
Because I worked in a rural area I kept a lever action carbine in the trunk of the car, a .357 Magnum to complement my service revolver. With that I wad set for up to 150-200 yards.

I'm glad I'm retired, I think they'd have me toting a flame thrower in one pocket and a bazooka in the other now.

A big part of the current problem is the seized drug money and property. This can only be sppent on certain kinds of equipment, weapons and ammunition. So the departments get all these new whiz-bang guns and stuff and they need bazillions of rounds of ammo. I went to work with six in my revolver, two speedloaders full, seven rounds in the carbine, five shotguns shells and a bag with half a box or so of .357s and maybe a dozen extra shotgun shells. In my whole career I never worried about running out of ammo. I worked in a single car, in the country, I might have to wait ten minutes or more for backup.
Now the boys carry so much ammo that if they fall into three inches of water they drown.
Progress.